What do Safe Work Australia (SWA) executives do outside National Safe Work Month? Several times each year, they appear before Senate committees. Recently, SWA’s CEO Marie Boland, Sinead McHugh, and Katherine Taylor spoke at a Senate Inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces....
The CEO of Safe Work Australia, Marie Boland, told delegates of the Psych Health and Safety Conference in Sydney on June 19 2024 that psychosocial injuries are likely to be notifiable to occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators, including instances of work-related suicide....
Last week, WorkSafe Victoria held its annual Business Leaders’ Breakfast. The keynote speaker was Karen Maher, who spoke about the need for an effective and respectful workplace culture that would foster a healthy psychosocial environment. Her presentation would have been familiar to many of the occupational health and safety (OHS) and WorkSafe personnel in the …
Employers and their representatives have long claimed to not understand their occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations and include OHS in their spurious claims of government “red tape”. These claims have become a business mantra but it is BS. OHS is not separate from running a business, making business decisions, or even designing a business …
On February 11, 2024, the Insiders program had a curious discussion on the Right-To-Disconnect. Different generational perspectives, industry perspectives, and a curious denial were present. Last week, the Australian Parliament passed workplace relations legislation that included a Right-To-Disconnect. Insiders’ host, David Speers, asked Jacob Greber of the Australian Financial Review to explain the probable workplace …
First, there was brainwashing, then greenwashing and safewashing. Could the well-being industry be accused of safewashing? Has well-being had its day in the sun? The first use of safewash to describe presenting occupational health and safety (OHS) information in a diffused truth was in the 2016 research paper by Sharron O’Neill, Jack Flanagan and Kevin …
Below is a video of a worker setting up their work area and dusting a retail sign. When one sees such videos or images, we naturally think, “What is he doing?” and “What was he thinking?” This article speculates on those questions and what could have been done....
